 Hello everyone and welcome to this beta zone session on thirty five point three million refugees as a critical juncture My name is Alexander Betz. I'm professor of force migration and international affairs at the University of Oxford We're going to begin this session with some opening remarks by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi who I'd like to welcome to the stage Thank you, Alex and good afternoon everybody and I will start by contradicting Alex immediately not Completely but partly in saying that yes I think it's very good and correct to say that there are thirty five point three million Refugees today in the world. The reality is that there are at our latest counts 114 million people that have had to flee their homes Because of the same causes that push the thirty five point three So the thirty five point three is part of a larger forced Displacement phenomenon. I mean Alex. I know you know, but just for the sake of the argument that That Prevails in the world today a hundred and fourteen million people So many of them are displaced inside their country our refugees inside their country So technically they're not cold refugees, but they all flee from the same causes a hundred and fourteen million is The largest number we have recorded since we started counting in a relatively reliable way and it says a lot about the state of our world and The first point I want to make is that Please those here those online others here at the forum Who's Whose purpose is committed to improving the state of the world the state of the world will not improve? I don't know if unless but certainly until the plight of these hundred and fourteen people is not addressed and in a world which is so busy focusing on a number of global challenges like Of course conflict, but also Climates pandemics poverty I Think it is important to Recall and remind everywhere everybody that this issue of forced displacement which often is the result of all other challenges combined not be forgotten and Be treated as well as one of the great global challenges of our time Unfortunately, we tend to remember about refugees about displaced when there is a big emergency when Russia invaded Ukraine and started bombing the country and millions of Ukrainians crossed European borders everybody suddenly remembered that there was something like forced displacement in the world and But we should not wait for the crisis or for the acute phase of the crisis to remember We should try to internalize that it is important for the sake of peace and for the sake of the future of the world Not to forget this hundred and fourteen million people The causes of flight who want to call them like this are increasingly complex and Intertwined surely UNHCR continue as the custodian of the definition of the law Related to refugees continues to say that that distinction between those that flee because of compulsion because of conflict because of persecution discrimination violence in different forms and people moving Sometimes fleeing because of other reasons that distinction needs to be maintained Not least because refugees have illegal construct in their favor Not always applied Increasingly less applied but still existing that needs to be preserved. Otherwise. We lose out on a huge Segment of the world human rights Construction so it's important to continue to maintain that distinction Not forgetting of course that all other people that also move more and more often Alongside the same roots more and more often Trafficked smuggled by the same criminal gangs also the other people have human rights have rights in fact and Have aspirations just like the refugees. This is why UNHCR increasingly cooperates with the other UN agency Dedicated to human mobility IOM they are more focusing on the migration aspects we on the refugee aspects But we fully recognize that there is a commonality of situations that need to be addressed not to mention rescue at sea not to mention Basic humanitarian assistance and so forth which are common to everybody on the move just a couple of other points by way of of You know starting this conversation one very important To also avoid focusing on this phenomenon Only when people arrive at the borders of rich countries because unfortunately very often This is the way it is all framed. It is people coming to the rich country so it's a problem for the rich countries to resolve and most commonly because there's so much political manipulation around that the problem is Resolved or States claim to resolve it by simply saying we stop we close we push back It's not our problem. We know that this is not only wrong Profoundly wrong because there are obligations that state have especially for those seeking asylum But it is also simply not working. This is what I always say there is a bit of a Polemic here between people like me and some people in governments They say that the traditional way of addressing refugee flow doesn't work So we have to reinvent the wheel. I say that actually that works and it is the The the pushback approach that is actually counterproductive and doesn't work So it's an open question and I think it is important to continue to debate finally just to say First of all It is important and we're increasingly saying this to government to look at this complex flows as a long Journey Right. We call this now. It's not a very nice expression, but I think it explains Let's have a root-based approach. So not you know, these issues will never be resolved in one point or the other of this long Journeys that people on the move are making They have to be addressed at every segment many people Would like not to take the risks that are inherent to these long journeys if they could have Access to opportunities along the way and you would be amazed about how many opportunities can be built Around the way in terms of access to services to employment and so forth granted those ways those journeys cross Poor countries fragile countries, so it makes it more complicated But it is not impossible to create those opportunities and the work that Organizations like mine like IOM and others are doing with development actors in particular in creating access to health to Education and to employment and we'll discuss this further in another meeting today Is are really the future I think because Humanitarian assistance in itself, which is the traditional way through which support to refugees has been seen the traditional prism is Notoriously and even increasingly Volatile and shorter last year my organization had to cut a thousand positions out of 20,000 at a time when the world needs a strong UNHCR and the same happens for other organizations Simply simply because the funds are not are not sufficient my very final point since we're here in Davos and I close is to say The other big Direction we're moving is really to say these Things are not just for organizations like ours or governments. They are For everybody the whole of society response that was somehow codified or How can I say described in the global compacts on refugees and migration that the UN approved a few years back these toolboxes really? Describe how different segments of society can respond not just states But for example big-time the private sector and this is an important Message the private sector can play a key role not just as a philanthropic actor Although that's very important as well, but as a partner as a partner through know-how through working together We've done amazing stuff with Companies with corporations with foundations in many parts of the world really innovative in terms of sustainable Sustainable care for refugees and giving them opportunities. That's the way to move on in this fraught world to address this global challenge Thank you. Thank you very much. I commissioner for these opening remarks in order to build on what you've said and Importantly reminding us that forced displacement is a major global challenge of our time I want to take a deep dive into a very particular context a particular context where the world economic forum has worked I had the privilege to co-lead to Leadership journeys taken by world economic forum young global leaders to the kakuma refugee camps and building on that There's a global shapers hub now in the kakuma refugee camps in Kenya the first shapers hub in a refugee context Anywhere in the world in my work I focus on the economic lives and contributions of refugees and try to showcase that through data And I'm going to draw upon some of that research to tell you a little bit about the kakuma context in Kenya And then when we move to the panel discussion We'll broaden globally and think about what implications it has for the wider world Now there are a lot of things that are very challenging about the kakuma refugee camps home to some 200,000 refugees If kakuma were a city it would be Kenya's seventh largest city But unlike many cities it's historically face significant challenges Inconsistent water supply lack of connection to road infrastructure lack of connectivity to the national grid and many people face Significant challenges the right to work freedom of movement are restricted for refugees in Kenya But when you go below the surface you see a community with skills Talents and aspirations you find over 3,000 Entrepreneurial businesses across the camps you discover that at one point half the refugee Olympic squad came from the kakuma refugee camps You find that there's there are 700 football teams across the camps playing competitive football And you discover as the IFC revealed a camp where the economy is worth more than 56 million dollars a year in annual expenditure And so there is potential and human capital in that population. Yes vulnerability, but also enormous capability now one of the challenges of course of Explaining what it's like in kakuma is not all of you can go to kakuma in person But I hope that we can transport you there a little bit in what I've got to say To do that we've embarked on a new project with colleagues at the University of Oxford and also colleagues living in kakuma called refugee stories And in that project we're working with a refugee film crew based in kakuma and really that story is about Recognizing that when we see human stories in refugee camps, they're often Decontextualized they often are unrepresentative of the wider population. You don't know who or what they represent within the data So we've tried to create data-driven human stories to collect representative data of the entire population Then be able to map out for instance the income distribution of the kakuma refugee camps But then go to particular points on the curve Zoom in and meet the people and I want to tell you a little bit about that briefly to open up the kakuma story So in looking at the economy of kakuma We discover that it is a deprived community poorer than the general host population in the Kenyan context So we see for instance at the global level that the median Income per day is around eight US dollars in Kenya. It's around five US dollars But in kakuma, it's less than two US dollars a day below the World Bank's extreme poverty line And that's a reflection of the very different geographical environment But also the very different institutional context in which kakuma finds itself But the data alone is somewhat dry So what we've also done is to try to map out that curve and identify particular people who sit on that curve So through our representative data, we've been able to identify the households that are at different deciles First deciles second third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth all the way up to a hundred percent and zoom in and meet the people So Rose is at the first decile The 10th percentile She's from South Sudan Abdi Razak on the other hand from Somalia sits at the eighth decile Rose as you'll see is largely dependent on humanitarian assistance and in debt Abdi Razak on the other hand has been able to build a small business Gradually a challenging business, but he's been able to build it and Abdi Razak's daily income is about twice that of Rose So I want to introduce you to them and hear from them in their own words So here is Rose's story Five And now we'll hear from Adi Razak. So these stories have been developed by a very talented filmmaker Rafael Bradenbrink working collaboratively with a film crew based in Kakuma, and there'll be more of them representing different data points released during the year. What does this mean for the global context, recognizing that in Kakuma life is challenging, entrepreneurship, employment, create opportunities for people. Well we've heard that in last year's data there are around 108 million people displaced including those internally displaced around the world. And in that data set around 35 million are displaced as refugees who have crossed the border fleeing war or authoritarian regimes leading to persecution. Now what's important to recognize is that the majority of refugees are not actually in rich countries or not traveling to rich countries. Some 76% are hosted in low and middle income countries, a little bit like Kenya for instance. The majority following the trend of urbanization around the world also live in cities but there's variation in that. So in Kenya and in East Africa the vast majority still live in camps or camp like context which is a reality for many people. It's also important to recognize though that in a context like Kakuma contrary to media publicity or political narratives very few move on irregularly to rich countries. So in our data collection we followed a representative sample of the Kakuma population over time after one year after two years and we found that population was highly mobile, often moving within the camp, often moving between cities in Kenya, quite often moving across borders to neighboring countries like Uganda. But the proportion in any given year who moved on from Kakuma to rich countries irregularly was less than 0.1%. So that's idea of waves of people coming from refugee camps to rich countries is a distortion of the reality. The question then is what should governments and business do? And one key aspect of this is the right to work and the opportunity to work where business and government can work together. In some of our research we've looked globally at the right to work and coded which countries give refugees the right to work legally, de jure and also in practice de facto. The darker colors represent those that in practice are not offering refugees the right to work, are restricting their rights and freedoms to work and engage socioeconomically. The lighter countries are more likely to have progressive, inclusive economic policies towards refugees. It's coding based on reflections by international humanitarian organizations and it includes data from those countries that hosted more than a certain number of refugees when we collected data. One thing we found that resonates with what Filippo highlighted was that one of the key factors in driving this variation is whether countries have signed and ratified the 1951 convention. It's really important that countries adhere to those legal standards. It translates into this kind of openness. What we also find when we compare refugees' outcomes in Kenya with restrictions on the right to work, with those in Uganda where there is a right to work looking at the same populations, Somali refugees, Congolese populations, that holding all other factors constant, the Ugandan model of giving refugees the right to work is associated with 16% higher incomes for refugees than the alternative. It's better for displaced people to have that right to work. We also find in our research that being able to engage in employment or entrepreneurship is correlated with higher incomes, greater subjective well-being, improved food security, better mental health and improved physical health outcomes for refugees. But it's not only refugees who benefit. We know from research done in Europe that when refugees are perceived to make an economic contribution they're more likely to be welcomed by receiving populations. In our research we found that in camps in Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, when refugees engage in economic transactions, through entrepreneurship or through employment relationships, the host community is more likely to have a tolerant and appreciative attitude of their presence. What's really important to recognize, though, is that there are people who thrive, who leave contexts like Kakuma and go on to make significant contributions. In Kakuma, despite the income distribution I showed, there are also outliers. Innocent Javier Imana has created a successful soap business thriving, exporting, and being able to employ refugees and members of the host community. Mesfingetahun runs one of the largest food wholesalers in Kakuma, even selling the food he produces to the WFP to distribute. One of the things we've been able to do as a university is create an initiative called the Refugee-led Research Hub, based in Nairobi. It provides opportunities for refugees to lead their own research, producing publications on citizenship outcomes for refugees. Refugees outcomes in accessing work permits, for instance, but also has created pathways for many people, including from Kakuma, to have access to graduate scholarships in Oxford and around the world. Thank you very much. Now I'd like to move on to the discussion that we'll have with our panelists and invite Alar and Ibru to come to the stage, please. So I think in this discussion around whether this is a critical juncture, there's sort of two elements that we really want to explore. The challenge, what is that critical juncture? Is it a critical juncture? For whom is it a critical juncture? And what are the key elements that leave us to be at this transition point and make this such a defining global challenge? And also the solutions. So perhaps let's start with the critical juncture. Alar, what does it look like for you? For whom is this critical? And is it different from previous contexts? Thank you so much. That was such an incredible presentation and I think the importance of people's agency is arguably I think at the core of all of this. For a huge part of my work, I was born in Canada, moved to Libya when I was a teenager where I lived through the revolution and really focused on women peace and security and working with populations and now lead a lot of global health work. And I think one thing that is true for me when we're assessing whether or not something is a critical juncture is who is the community that we're anchoring at the center of that story. And I think if you go to the vast majority of refugees, particularly those for example in Kukuma who have been there for decades, they will tell you it's been critical for a while. It's not just critical because to your point there's different media attention or there's different politics, but it has been critical for a while and I think for the international community, just given where we are and the audience we're speaking with, I think it's important to recognize that we should also see it as critical because it is an abdication of our responsibility and our commitment to our global community. To your point, we have conventions, they've been ratified. We have institutions that should be supported and yet the conversation only ends up being seen as critical when it meets the headlines in particular countries and it doesn't negate the fact that this is a lived reality for so many, for millions of children and women and families and men around the world and where they deal with this reality, be it in terms of employment, of food security, of nutrition, of basic health care services. I mean, look at maternal mortality where the number is staggering in refugee communities and in IDP communities as opposed to the general population and you wonder, we're in 2024, do we not have an accountability to these communities, especially when we have said that that is the international community's purpose, right? And so I think it's been critical for a very long time and I think, I do think that these conversations should be had as much in Kakuma as they should be had here in terms of what then are the solutions in these communities? So we've been failing many people in protracted situations for a long time and just because we now proclaim this to be a crisis in the media or in rich countries, it doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been a crisis for many people individually and personally for a very long time. Ibru, you work in the private sector in Turkey. We've looked at the African context a little bit. What does this look like in the Turkish context? Thanks for the question because I was thinking how critical it is. And for the past 10 years, it's very critical for Turkey because we have been receiving Syrian refugees for the past 10 years and it's more than 4 million now and probably more than a million babies were born already in Turkey. So and at this moment, we see that as it's been said, you know, that they're pushed back by the boats of some other countries and Turkish naval forces are saving these people. I mean, this is a very critical moment in the world as well. I mean, this is a problem of the world. This is a problem of the developed countries as well because we are taking care of these 4 million people and they are socially in Turkey. And actually, we made a documentary about it with Atlantic Council 2 years ago about 4 successful women who came to Turkey from Syria, from the border, walking, just by their suitcases. And one of them become a very good cook. The other one is a radio reporter. The other one is like a wedding planner. And the fourth one is established language school and they were outliers maybe but they created very good examples. And at this moment, also we faced a forced displacement because we had a very big earthquake in 11 cities, 10 more than 10 million people has to be forced to change their locations. So I think the most important thing is now as the world, we have to think to sort these issues or sort all these problems at the source rather than spending millions, tons of money for the arms or getting arms of all the countries. Maybe we can sort these issues at the source countries because nobody wants to be displaced, right? I mean, why do you want to change your country? The title of our documentary was why do seagulls migrate? I mean, there should be a reason. If we don't sort these issues out and as you have described, as they're not good outliers, I'm just afraid that these people have nothing to lose so they can just be terrorists as well. So my proposition is we cannot let this 114 million people to get higher in numbers. We have to go to the source, sort these issues out in the countries itself. So there's a real challenge of needing to support peace and conflicts around the world and ensure people are not displaced in the first place. But once people are displaced or have been displaced for a long time, how can we look for solutions whether it's from governments, business, public-private collaboration? What would you suggest? Well, and I think, you know, to Filippo's comments earlier about the accountabilities we all share, I think it's actually really important to be looking at what are the basic needs. And so we often talk about kind of the unknown and insecurity, but there are things we actually know. We fundamentally know. Everybody needs an education. You spoke about employment. The data shows that when a young girl gets educated, she is much more likely to be able to get employment. She's much more likely to then return that economic benefit to her community, 90% actually, as opposed to men who, not to put the men in the room on the spot, but return about 30% to 40%. And she's much more likely to then have, to space out her children to marry later, to choose when to marry, and to have healthier children. And so I actually see, you know, as you were speaking about employment, the very first thing that came to mind was, how do we ensure that people even have the, that they can even think in that box of like, okay, wait, there is an opportunity for me. And I do think that starts with, at its core, education. I do think that starts with a recognition that you deserve a dignified life, and that we need to build in the processes and the institutions, because I wholeheartedly agree, we shouldn't be doing band-aid solutions, but we should also ensure that people today can live dignified and prosperous and opportunistic lives. And so that would be the first. The second is healthcare. It is nearly impossible, and I will speak specifically to women because not only of my own lived experience, but my professional background, it is impossible to go to a woman and say, hey, can you work when she is unable to have agency over her own body, when she feels unsafe in the space she occupies, and women who are refugees and internally displaced are highly vulnerable to that. And so really being able to ensure that they have access to care, to ensure that their children have access to care. And when I said there's things that we know, we know things work, we know that women will have babies. So we need postpartum hemorrhage packages. We need an iron for women who are pregnant because anemia is devastating in terms of outcomes for children. We know that the first 1,000 days of a baby's life are the most sensitive 1,000 days. We know new babies, need nutrition. We know children need immunizations. And so I think there is an accountability of us saying, okay, how do we solve the long-term peace challenges? How do we actually address these long-term political solutions? But also how are we acting in service of the communities that exist today? And so many partners, so many businesses actually provide these tools and services. So how do we engage them in the conversation and say what you provide in your emerging market or what you provide in your established market is something that you should also be contributing to these communities. And the very last thing I'll say that both of you had touched on was, the devastating conversations we're having politically about the financial accountability of countries around the world. It is a duty for us to resource. And that doesn't negate from the self-resilience of these communities, but it doesn't negate us from the accountability that we also share. So we need to be passing policies and laws that permit the right to work and that permit more freedom of movement and give them more security. But we also need to hold ourselves accountable and say, wait a second. We're actually part of the problem here. So should we not be part of the solution? Should our tax dollars not be going to providing safety, security and access to healthcare for communities that need it most? So I think there's both the political and the necessary challenges and solutions. I also think there's very practical ones that we can all be accountable for today. So employment matters, but there's a broader context where social protection matters, health and education are crucial. We need to look in that broader context to ensure that people are supported with their vulnerabilities, to build on their capacities and ensure that there is support from states, from businesses for the whole picture. Well, yeah, and I'll just say, I think it's all anchored in two things, agency and power. And I don't think we can have an honest conversation about how we partner with and support and ensure the protection or employment, et cetera, of refugees without talking about the fact that this is inherently a conversation around power and agency. Ibru, what do you think the role of business should be in this space? You lead a large company. What's your perspective on that? The way that we are looking at this is, I mean, we have to, as the refugees are in Turkey now, it's been more than 10 years, we are just putting them into the workforce. And right now we are talking about risk killing, upskilling of the workforce from whatever background they're coming from. So this is a very good moment to have all these refugees, especially women. I mean, I'd like to build on it. I mean, education is not enough. The current workforce needs are not coming with the education. We have to definitely develop some soft skills. And at this era of digitalization, I think there's a very big opportunity to train all these women, because we do also a lot of work in the gender, to have all these women in the workforce as well. So I feel like this is also an opportunity time to build on these women refugees and to have more of these in the workforce. Fantastic. I think we've got time for one question from the floor, if anyone would like to ask anything of our panellists. You have a very big women population. Well, I think it reflects the reality of vulnerable populations around the world. But I know there's so many people in this room who have incredible solutions in refugee and migrant and IDP community. So if you'd like to also speak to that. An media outlet that covers humanitarian crisis, especially forgotten ones. So I want to ask you about something that you addressed before that is the migration, not only to rich countries, but to middle income or low income countries. In Chile, for example, we are a middle income country and we have a very strong pressure on migration from Venezuela, from Haiti, from Peru, from Colombia. And so there's a huge political debate now and it's part of the political agenda against migration. So now this is terrible. It's a far right agenda that is, you know, going everywhere. So now people in Chile are feeling that migrants are against their own interests. They're taking their opportunities and that all the money we have for very, you know, challenging the situation of middle class people should go to Chileans and not to Venezuelans or Colombians and somebody else has to take care of them. So what do we do to change that narrative that now is so strong and is politically, you know, having a lot of success in the elections? Thank you. So each of you in 20 seconds, what would be your response? I just say, I mean, this is the same issue in Turkey. It's nationalism. I mean, it's the world issue. And I think we have to fight with it. It's like, because we have to take care of this. This is our humanitarian responsibility. Well, I was just going to build on that. I do think misinformation is a huge challenge across so many development issues and you working at the New Humanitarian are probably doing some of the most incredible work, which is really shedding a light on the realities of these. I also think it's interesting on one hand, we talk about refugees and IDPs as these like uneducated, incapable, you know, taking all of our resources. And at the same time, we're like, wait, they're taking all our jobs and they're, right? And it's kind of like, wait a second, what is the discourse we're actually selling here? So I do think interrogating it and amplifying and creating a surround sound about the potential, the resilience, but also the global accountability for these communities. This is a topic that needs to stay on our agenda and needs to stay on the global agenda. Unfortunately, this session is a very short one, but at the forum we'll be continuing this conversation. There's a session of the forum's refugee employment alliance this afternoon, which will go into depth and look more systematically at pathways to solutions. But I'd like to thank very much, Ella, Hebrew and Filippo for your involvement in this panel. Thank you very much. Thank you.